Mr Tab,
Re: "Perhaps, but by your definition, and others, this happens so often I doubt it would surprise the market much."
I think it could surprise the market because AMD has specifically said that the 32nm
GloFo process schedule slip has not affected the AMD product schedule. When AMD has to admit otherwise,
then the market might react.
Re: "Besides, my comment was focused on process vs design. They have no new designs in the pipeline."
There are no new products in the pipeline because AMD doesn't have a 32nm process. It just
doesn't make sense to have new products designed at 45nm. The process and product development
are closely ties together. Let me describe the process/product development cycle (tick-tock).
Start Development - Day 0
TICK
1) 0-3 months
Process Team - Develops paper design rules, models, process design kit (PDK), unit process development.
Design/Product Team - Designs test chips (SRAM, design rule/reliability, ...), gives feedback on performance of paper PDK.
2) 3-12 months
Process Team - Verify in silicon design rules, models and PDK. Make changes to PDK if necessary.
Get/analyze test chip yield and parameteric data.
Design/Product Team - Port over existing product design (or slightly modified) to run as first product.
3) 12-18 months
Process Team - Freeze process (design rules and PDK), very few changes allowed. Complete reliability
testing ... Process is available for risk starts. Prototypes are provided to customers.
Design/Product Team - First silicon on actual product, yield analysis and product qualification/characterization.
4) 18-24 months
Process Team - Copy Exactly to manufacturing sites, release to production and start volume ramp.
Design/Product Team - Work with process team on product yield improvement and qualifying mfg sites.
Also, start design of next generation product.
Mr Tab, what you can see from this simplified process/product development schedule is that
the process and design teams work very closely together all during the development of a
technology node (like 32nm). This is one reason I am concerned about AMD splitting
off GloFo as this will only hinder this important teamwork.
The next question is where do you think AMD is at on this schedule for their 32nm technology
node. If you believe what GloFo says right now, then it looks like they will start
step(3) in Q3 2010. This means they will be at volume production a year later.
Re: "I am dubious that any production cost advantage from 32nm will overcome price reductions
resulting from increase competition from Intel pushing current i7xx/5xx process lines."
That is the point of pushing technology ... It lowers the cost and improves the performance.
INTC will be able to push the i7/i5 lines because they have a process technology advantage.
Mahmoud |
